单选题 The decline of traditional religion in the West has not removed the need for men and women to find a deeper meaning behind existence. Why is the world the way it is and how do we, as conscious individuals, fit into the great scheme? There is a growing feeling that science, especially what is known as the new physics, can provide answer where religion remains vague and faltering. Many people in search of a meaning to their lives are finding enlightenment in the revolutionary developments at the frontiers of science. Much to the bewilderment of professional scientists, quasi-religious cults are being formed around such unlikely topic as quantum physics, space-time relativity, black holes and the big bang. How can physics, with its reputation for cold precision and objective materialism, provide such fertile soil for the mystical? The truth is that the spirit of scientific inquiry has undergone a remarkable transformation over the past 50 years. The twin revolutions of the theory of relativity, with its space-warps and time-warps, and the quantum theory, which reveals the shadowy and unsubstantial nature of atoms, have demolished the classical image of a clockwork universe slavishly unfolding along a predetermined pathway. Replacing this sterile mechanism is a world full of shifting indeterminism and subtle interactions which have no counterpart in daily experience. To study the new physics is to embark on a journey of wonderment and paradox, to glimpse the universe in a novel perspective, in which subject and object, mind and matter, force and field, become intertwined. Even the creation of the universe itself has fallen within the province of scientific inquiry. The new cosmology provides, for the first time, a consistent picture of how physical structures, including space and time, came to exist out of nothing. We are moving towards an understanding in which matter, force, order and creation are unified into a single descriptive theme. Many of us who work in fundamental physics are deeply impressed by the harmony and order which pervades the physical world. To me the laws of the universe, from quarks to quasars, dovetail together so felicitously that the impression there is something behind it all seems overwhelming. The laws of physics are so remarkably clever that they can surely only be a manifestation of genius.
单选题 The writer says people nowadays find that traditional religion is______.
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】解析:文章第一段第一句指出“The decline of traditional religion in the West has not removed the needfor men and women to find a deeper meaning behind existence”,意为传统的宗教观已经无法满足世人对生存意义的进一步探求了,所以第一题答案为B。
单选题 What does the writer probably have in mind when he in paragraph 3 refers to the classical image of a clockwork universe?
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】解析:第三段说的是物理学,尤其是相对论还有量子论,推翻了之前对宇宙的那种严格按照已经预定的途径一步步展开的解释,那么就与达尔文的相对论、牛顿发现地球引力还有第一次工业革命全然没有关系,所以答案为B,作者此时想到的应该是加尔文教对宇宙的解释。
单选题 The writer of the passage is most likely______.
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】解析:第六段第一句话“Many of us who work in fundamental physics are deeply impressed by theharmony and order which pervades the physical world.”中作者暗示了自己的身份为研究基础物理人员中的一分子,所以本题答案为C。